This week, I continue work on a ballad written from the perspective of Aurora from The Thirteenth Hour from a passage in the book where our young protagonists are starting to realize that there might be more to their relationship than just friendship. I’ve been fiddling with adding a beat to the song and was listening to two examples – one by Debbie Gibson (“Lost in Your Eyes”) which adds a beat after a piano intro riff and another by Alphaville (“Forever Young”) which actually has no backing beat at all in the original version until about 1 and a quarter minutes into the song.

This week, I continue work on a ballad written from the perspective of Aurora from The Thirteenth Hour from a passage in the book where our young protagonists are starting to realize that there might be more to their relationship than just friendship. Last week I had a rough draft of the lyrics. This week, I’m singing the second draft and playing the chords on the keyboard.

While I was practicing the intro riff, I kept wanting to play the theme from the 1991 movie, The Rocketeer, scored by James Horner. It’s not surprising since it’s one of my favorite soundtracks and one of my most favorite movies of all time, though I’ve never tried figuring out the intro theme, which is played partly on the piano if I’m not mistaken.

I’m playing it in the key of C, just like “The Last Dance,” which is probably why the two kept getting mixed up in my head, even though they don’t sound much alike.

This week, I start work on a new ballad written from the perspective of Aurora from The Thirteenth Hour from this passage in the book where our young protagonists are starting to realize that there might be more to their relationship than just friendship (The Thirteenth Hour is occasionally told from multiple perspectives; boldedblack portions of the text below indicate a perspective change from Aurora to Logan):

I hadn’t seen much of Logan the whole dance; he’d been whisked away by an overzealous female flamingo as soon as the dance had started. The last I saw, he was listening to the animated hoots and squawks of the backflipping chimpanzee after they’d had a backflip contest which ended in a tie.

The more I looked for him, the harder he was to find. I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of jealousy. After all, we’d come here together. We should have at least once dance. For some reason, that seemed important … I couldn’t explain, but I hoped he would understand.

The animal band suddenly announced that this would the last song, and when the crowd protested, they promised to make it extra–long and slow. Great. These were the kind of songs that required a partner. And if you were a girl and didn’t have one, like me, you either stood marooned on the floor, awkwardly waiting for someone to ask you to dance or retreated to the sidelines. I looked around for awhile but could not find Logan. As I sighed and turned to walk to the side, suddenly he was right there, alone. Among all the faces swimming around my eyes, I saw only his. He didn’t ask if I wanted to dance; he just took my hand, and we joined in the crowd.

“There’s something …” we both said at precisely the same instant. And then we both laughed. “… that I wanted to tell you,” we both finished.

There were a few seconds of silence. I felt like there was an invisible wall that my words had to get over … if I could get them over that barrier, everything would be fine. But I couldn’t do it, at least not yet. Finally I gave a sheepish grin and a sideways nod that said “maybe you better go first.”

“Well, back when I was talking to the unicorn – you know, the Lord of the Earth, he offered to see into my future. And the fortune said in the very near future I’d be married. Can you believe it? Can you imagine me, married?”

I thought for a second. There were a couple of places I could go from there, but I chose the semi–safe route. “I think I can, but … what made you think of that just now?”

“Well, I really wanted to tell you at the baths. But then we got interrupted. And then, at dinner, there was so much going on, and I kinda forgot. And then I saw you just now and, I dunno, that’s what I thought of. I don’t know why, I guess.”

“Did the Lord say to whom?”

“No, he didn’t say.”

“Didn’t or wouldn’t?”

“Wouldn’t. I did try asking.”

“You must have been surprised. You sound surprised.”

“I was. I just never really thought about it before. Maybe it would be nice, if you found the right person, but finding that person … I dunno, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

He wasn’t taking the bait, and I couldn’t really blame him. It was kind of a long shot. Guys weren’t great with these kinds of things, anyway. Still, it never hurt to try. “You really think it would be so hard to find the right person?”

“Well, how many girls have I really known?” I shrugged and laughed, looking down at Aurora’s feet. “I mean, who would I marry, you?”

Ouch …

I regretted it the moment I said it. I’d been joking, but hadn’t meant it to come out like that. If there was any girl I did have feelings for, Aurora certainly would’ve been the one, but to marry someone, you had to love them, didn’t you? I still didn’t really know what that was. There was an awkward silence. I laughed a little and felt like an idiot. Aurora laughed, too, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should have just kept my mouth shut.

It was alright, and I said so. Like I said, it was a long shot, and even I didn’t understand the weird mess of feelings inside. But I was forced at that moment to admit that they were there. Things were changing, and I was falling.

“ … but you said that you had something to say, too?” Logan asked.

I just shook my head and looked down at the spinning dance floor. It made me dizzy, and I looked back up at Logan. He was just tall enough so I had to look up a little to meet his gaze but not so tall that I couldn’t rest my head on his shoulder, if the time were right for that. I didn’t, though. Instead, I looked into his eyes but could not tell what he was thinking. I did my best to smile, and we danced that way until the song ended.

Way back in episode 130, I took one part of the main Thirteenth Hour theme and created a short electric guitar part to accompany an introspective part of the book, and two weeks ago, I took the first verse of the theme and made it a slow guitar part. The last 2 weeks (eps 173 and 174), I slowed down the tempo and eliminated notes to get at what we have this week. These two IG posts show a little of the progression:

I imagined this track will eventually fit a contemplative scene in one of The Thirteenth Hour stories, especially an upcoming short storycalled “Empty Hands” set during the time of The Thirteenth Hour, so much so that that’s what I’m going to call this track. You can see little clips of past iterations on the soundtrack IG page as well as this podcast’s FB page.

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Way back in episode 130, I took one part of the main Thirteenth Hour theme and created a short electric guitar part to accompany an introspective part of the book, and two weeks ago, I took the first verse of the theme and made it a slow guitar part. Last week was a variation on those episodes where I took the same theme and reworked it on the piano to be even slower. This week is very similar, though it’s become kind of an exercise in minimalism – how many notes can I eliminate and still retain the essence of the theme’s melody? In addition, I’ve been making the tempo slower and slower to fit better with the introspective mood I imagine this track will eventually fit (I’m picturing a contemplative scene in one of The Thirteenth Hour stories, where one of the main characters is lonely or contemplates something weighty, like the state of the world, their place in the universe, etc). You can see little clips on the soundtrack IG page as well as this podcast’s FB page. Next week, I’ll have a better idea what the final thing will look like, and we’ll probably add the backing layer to give it more depth.

In this episode, I include two excerpts from instrumental tracks I was using as inspiration: “A Private Showing” by Stephen Hague and John Musser (from Some Kind of Wonderful, discussed in episode 154), and “Tommib” by Squarepusher (from Lost in Translation).

The track entitled “A Private Showing” scores the art museum scene above. It is found at around 6:29 in the first clip.

“Tommib” plays during this scene in Lost in Translation where the lonely main character, a neglected young wife accompanying her husband on a working trip to Japan, contemplates the state of her life (I guess) while the track fills in the gaps. Check out this page for more information on how the track may have been created,

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Way back in episode 130, I took one part of the main Thirteenth Hour theme and created a short electric guitar part to accompany an introspective part of the book, and last week, I took the first verse of the theme and made it a slow guitar part. This week is very similar, though I’m using a piano for the same effect. You can see little clips on the soundtrack IG page as well as this podcast’s FB page.

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Way back in episode 130, I took one part of the main Thirteenth Hour theme and created a short electric guitar part to accompany an introspective part of the book. Unlike the track we created then, the track uses a much more subdued effect – very little gain, more minimalistic, quieter – for a different feel, though the process was about the same. You can see little clips of the guitar part on the soundtrack IG page as well as this podcast’s FB page.

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.